Learning and new skills
Sanity, is not stable, it is a dynamic, growing process. I make lists of what I want to learn or create. New experience is more meaningful for me than acquiring material things. Exercising learning muscles develops long-admired capabilities: simple expressions of Italian, Spanish and Japanese, photography and travel blogging, expanding distinctions for opera and classical music, forming a book club to return to the joys of the written word.
When I press into new learning, I forget about time, and lose myself in what seems like liberating play. Most satisfying is to complete long-standing, floating desires. and enrich my sense of substance and accomplishment.
Old dogs can learn new tricks!
Professional practice and innovation
I will always work. The secret for me is to have my expressions of work be at choice – to balance work with recreation, with travel, and relationship. Then fulfillment and self-worth are woven into areas of accomplishment and contribution. My relationship to work is a renewable creation – a personal art form. Management consulting and performance coaching in business is performance art for me – it is never fully predictable; I must bring my best to inspire what is great in people, it is alive, frightening, and enormously fulfilling when promises are realized.
So, what can I uniquely continue to provide that a well-programmed robot, designed to obsolete me, can’t or won’t?
Courage in the face of comforting routine is my key to innovation. My default mechanism is to retreat to the predictable illusions of what worked last time. As change redefines my circumstance, generating new possibilities is my navigational toolkit for renewal and relevance in the emerging marketplace of ideas. Listening to my audience is essential for a trueing signal.
Domestic life and enjoying what I have
Einstein was asked what he would do if informed of imminent nuclear attack: “Tend my garden” he replied without hesitation. The Chinese say “carrying water and chopping wood”. How do I find gratification in the chores of everyday existence?
I love shopping for fresh food, cooking it with love and flair, and relishing the sanctity of the evening table with my family. I regard cooking as consumable art; mealtime is church; it is contentment in simplicity. And the universe reciprocates – my wife loves to do the dishes!
I love where I live, with whom I live, and what I do….and, I work at it.
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